While packing for a trip to Holland years ago, my friend suggested we should bring all of our old underwear that was on its very last legs and discard them along the way, leaving more room in the suitcase to bring things home on the way back.  We laughed and it didn’t really happen, although I did toss a pair during a side trip to Paris.

But the following year as I prepared to do a budget road trip through Europe with my children, I figured Why Not?  The stretched out, the holey, the spent elastic, the faded, the not so nice anymore.  The ones you are not supposed to be caught dead in.  I had so many of them.  Don’t we all? The kids had some that could be discarded too.  Why do we keep them for so long?

Because they are still functional and I am a Functional Girl.  My mother would cringe at the thought.  How many mothers have said “What if you get in an accident and you have those ratty old panties on in the emergency room ?”  Now there’s an excuse for you.

So I packed them all up, mine and the kid’s too – a whole lot of underwear!  One for every single day of the trip and then some – with the hopes that there would not be any serious TSA suitcase checks at the airport.  I am sure they have seen it all, but a suitcase full of old panties is not something I would enjoy having to stand captive to while they publically rifled through them.  We made it through, undies intact.

Oh vulgar American!  We tossed panties away in Venice, in Vienna, in Munich, in Prague.  We left them in trash receptacles in Luxembourg and Bern.  It was so liberating that I have left a trail of underwear from Maine to California, from Florida to the Grand Canyon, from the French Antilles to Marrakesh; in Nantucket, New York City and Istanbul.  It almost seems that having panties wear out becomes an indication of when it is time to travel again. Old undies?  Vacation alert!

The best part is, once you get home you can start all over again with brand new ones.  A fresh start in life….

A collection of oldies seems to be accumulating again.  I think it might be time to plan a road trip…